Howard Hawks

Man’s Favorite Sport? (1964)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, December 2020) Any movie that claims to be directly inspired by Bringing Up Baby gets a fast-track to my affection, and Man’s Favorite Sport has a much stronger claim than others at that distinction, having been directed by Howard Hawks – who apparently tried to get Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn to reprise their roles. He obviously wasn’t able to do so, but getting Rock Hudson and Paula Prentiss instead is really not a bad substitute. The story has to do with a fishing expert having never fished (Hudson) and the woman (Prentiss) who discovers his secret on the eve of a major competition. But the plot is really a driver for a neo-screwball comedy featuring Howard’s typical fast pace running roughshod over absurd comic situations. The film can be especially funny to those with some outdoors experience, as much of it is seeing a befuddled Hudson trying his best at becoming an outdoorsman. Prentiss is cute and vivacious enough, while Hudson is perhaps a bit uncomfortable in a zanier comic persona that was asked of him in earlier romantic comedies. (I have a hunch that Hudson was never able to completely surrender his persona to the ridiculousness of the comedy beats.) There’s a sense that the film wasn’t quite able to get the lightning pace of previous Hawks screwball comedies, but it’s not for lack of trying and the result is that Man’s Favourite Sport is merely funny rather than hilarious – which is still a success.

Land of the Pharaohs (1955)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, October 2020) Years after the disappointing release of Land of the Pharaohs, director Howard Hawks admitted that he had taken up the job for the opportunity to work in widescreen CinemaScope. He did have a point—it’s impossible to watch the film and not be impressed by the sheer large-scale cast-of-thousands scope of the entire production. The story takes us to the construction of the pyramids, and it practically recreates the effort at scale: the making of the film involved official cooperation from the Egyptian government to unearth the foundations of an unfinished pyramid, and secured the cooperation of the army for the in-camera recreation of sequences with up to ten thousand extras. It’s a mind-boggling production story, one that will never be repeated considering CGI economies of scale, and an effort that is immediately visible on-screen. And yet, despite Hawks orchestrating such a production, Land of Pharaohs feels like a miss—by itself, but also as a piece of Hawks’ filmography. Gone is the whip-fast dialogue, the competent heroine and the sense of urban sophistication: this is a film that, in keeping with the sweeping historical epics of the time, deals in arch fake-profound dialogue, a very conventional role for the heroine, and a weird sense of historical recreation that never feels too far away from Hollywood’s sense of history rather than any real effort to commit to the historical era. The plot, about the pyramid’s architect trying to find a way to make the pyramid robber-proof while escaping being executed to keep its secrets, is fine without being as good as the setting. The eye-popping presentation of the pyramid’s construction far outshines anything in the plot, which doesn’t give as much weight to the rest of the film. The best-known star here is Joan Collins as the female lead, and while she’s very attractive, she’s not that good of an actress. While you can easily justify watching Land of the Pharaohs for its visual aspect, the rest of the film is a disappointment, and perhaps even a double disappointment considering the rest of Hawks’ filmography. This being said, I did find one aspect of the film amusing: as someone whose day job consists of managing “architects” of sorts, I had a load of fun passing on some of the film’s most pretentious lines of dialogue: “I do not intend to punish you, architect, but to reward your skill,” “Work swiftly, architect,” “Well, architect, you sent word you had a plan,” “I did believe in you once, architect,” “You have served me well, architect,” “I will not bargain with you, architect,” “Architect, I understand that you’re ready to start work on the inner labyrinth…”…

Barbary Coast (1935)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, July 2020) It feels weird to talk about Barbary Coast as a western, considering that it takes place in the largely urban setting of 1850s San Francisco. But it does feature many elements of the western thanks to the gold rush that serves as its backdrop. There’s an air of a wild frontier to it all, as much of the action initially takes place in a saloon of sorts, then runs out for life away from the city in a gold mining camp. So, let’s call this an “urban western” and try not to think too much about the contradiction. As such, it’s not bad: this two-fisted thriller shows life in San Francisco during the gold rush, with a wealthy villain (Edward G. Robinson) running the town while everyone else cowers. Director Howard Hawks brings his characteristic touch to the result (not as refined as his later films, but still effective) and the whole thing is rather fun to watch even as it deals in clichés and rough plotting. While technically of the Production Code era, the script still has enough echoes of innuendos to stay interesting. Even if some of the characters can be cartoonish, Barbary Coast is still a convincing trip to a specific time and place. Watch it as a double feature with 1936’s San Francisco disaster film for a wild Hollywood dive into the city’s history.

I Was a Male War Bride (1949)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, July 2020) How can anyone resist Howard Hawks reteaming with Cary Grant, with Ann Sheridan as a co-star? While I Was a Male War Bride can be accused of stretching a mildly amusing real-life anecdote over nearly two hours, even its uneven nature doesn’t quite take away from the pleasure of seeing Hawks handle comedy, of having Cary Grant goof off in a solid role, or Sheridan as the foil to Grant’s good-natured willingness to make fun of himself. Much of the film’s first half seems disconnected to the title, as a French officer (Grant) and an American lieutenant (Sheridan) fall in love through a copious amount of romantic belligerence in postwar Europe. The title comes into focus midway through, as the film shifts gears, marries its protagonists and then becomes mired in the bureaucratic nightmare of having our square-jawed hero fall into the provisions made for repatriating spouses (usually women) of American soldiers. Kafka turns comic, as Grant repeatedly tries to navigate regulations made for a woman, going all the way to a gender-bending moment of crossdressing. Grant is a good sport throughout, playing with the assumed gender norms on which rest the fundamentals of this comedy. As usual for Hawks’s movies, his female characters are sharply drawn to be the equal of his male characters (even more obviously so in this case) and his dialogue is as fast as the actors can deliver it. While I Was a War Male Bride does not feature very highly on Hawks or Grant’s filmography, it’s a solid comedy and well worth a look for fans of the director or stars.

A Song Is Born (1948)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, January 2020) By sheer coincidence, I happened to have A Song is Born sitting on the DVR right after seeing Ball of Fire — The first film being a musical remake of the second. Considering how much I liked Ball of Fire, I was both curious and apprehensive about a remake, especially one made barely seven years after the original and by the same director Howard Hawks. Of course, it turns out that there were at least two reasons for the remake: picture and sound. For one thing, A Song is Born is shot in glorious early-colour cinematography, improving upon the atmosphere of the original and making it just a bit more accessible to modern audiences. For another, A Song is Born clearly listened to those who raved about the musical number in Ball of Fire and repurposed the plot to focus on musical elements. Our encyclopedia-writing professors are now putting together a compendium of musical styles, and the lounge singing aspect of the heroine takes far more importance. According to the historical record, production on the film was difficult (Howard Hawks coming back as a director solely for the paycheque, lead actor Danny Kaye being in the middle of a rough divorce) but little of it is visible on-screen as the film bounces from one comic set-piece to another. In many ways, A Song is Born is not as good a movie as Ball of Fire: Danny Kaye is working only at half-speed compared to Gary Cooper (Kaye’s divorce had an impact on the film in that Kaye refused to sing—with the result being a musical in which the lead actor doesn’t sing: strange!), and the set-pieces seem far more deliberate than the first film. Most modern viewers will miss an entire layer to the film that was obvious to late-1940s audiences: the film is crammed with cameos from then-famous musicians. If you’re not familiar with the era, many jokes will fly over our heads –the (admittedly very funny) Benny Goodman sequence being a case in point, as he plays a professor being asked to perform as Goodman would. Still, A Song is Born does have its qualities: it’s very amiable, does change just enough from the original film to feel fresh, and -in its own way—affirms how good the first film was. It’s not quite as good indeed, but I didn’t have the impression that I wasted my time having a look at it.

Ball of Fire (1941)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, January 2020) I’ll watch anything directed by Howard Hawks, but even I got a bigger surprise than expected with Ball of Fire, a romantic comedy with a few unexpected treats. Gary Cooper stars in his own solid way as an encyclopedist who steps out of his reclusive existence to study contemporary slang… and ends up paired with a lounge singer who needs to lay low after her mobster boyfriend comes under scrutiny. Barbara Stanwyck is at the top of her game as the female lead invading the sanctity of the encyclopedia writers’ refuge, teaching them much and falling for one of them in return. The plot, in typical screwball fashion, makes little logical sense but impeccable comic sense. Before long, we’re in a clash in which bookish old men take on gangsters holding them hostage through science—and win. Along the way, we get a performance out of the legendary drummer Gene Krupa playing the original Drum Boogie (a welcome surprise, given that I was familiar with Swing Republic’s electro house remix), first with his big band and then minimally with two matchsticks (with the expected final flourish). The rapid-fire dialogue is a Hawks trademark (working from a script written by a young Billy Wilder), and having Stanwyck as a typical Hawksian heroine only bonifies the result. I’m not as happy with the film’s clear anti-intellectual skepticism, but much of it simply powers the plot—by the end brawl between Cooper and a mobster, there’s no doubt as to who will triumph. It all makes for a very likable film working from a Snow White and the Seven Dwarves template, with two lead actors at their most sympathetic, and a writer-director combo who clearly knew what they were going for.

The Crowd Roars (1932)

The Crowd Roars (1932)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, December 2019) There’s a blend of familiarity and strangeness at play in The Crowd Roars that I find quite interesting. On the familiar side, this is a racing film, and it’s directed by Howard Hawks. You get much of what we’ve come to expect from both Hawks (action, tough men and articulate women) and from car racing films. The dramatic arc is intensely melodramatic, but we know where we are and there aren’t many surprises along the way. But there’s an alien quality to The Crowd Roars that makes it interesting as well. As one of the first sound films to look at auto racing, it reflects the rougher, sometimes fatal nature of such events—different cars, different attitudes toward accidents as well. It’s clear that the film comes from a Pre-Code time when the grammar of racing sequences was still being defined—there’s some surprisingly good racing footage here, as well as some jarring rear-projection work that does not do any favours to the actors. James Cagney stars as a borderline-unlikable protagonist, but he doesn’t quite fit the role and isn’t as intense here as other films of the era. Ann Dvorak and Joan Blondell are more interesting as the romantic interests (spurned by the men!)  Hawks’ work here is decent but not overly impressive: he gets the importance of thrilling audiences, but his interest in the film doesn’t seem to extend to the dramatic moments. The Crowd Roar is not an essential film—in many ways, it feels like the kind of material that Warner Brothers churned out by obligation at the time. But it does present an interesting glimpse into racing at the dawn of the 1930s, perhaps the best we have captured on film. Given this, it may be worth a particular look for those interested in cars and their portrayal in Hollywood history.

Viva Villa! (1934)

Viva Villa! (1934)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, October 2019) Hollywood has always had a soft spot for grander-than-life outlaws, mostly because it could make portray them as protagonists even bigger than life and (in the name of entertainment) revel in whatever cool crimes they committed. 1930s Hollywood was just as susceptible, as shown by a number of outlaw movies of which Viva Villa! Is only one example. Here we have Hollywood avowedly magnifying the legend of the famous Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa: a woman in every village, an army of thousands, and an American journalist creating his legend. It’s not exactly subtle, and the film’s treatment of the character is not without a dose of racism: clearly, this is an American perspective on a Mexican story (literally—what would Villa be without the American journalist documenting his actions?) rather than an attempt to show the story from his own perspective. Executed with significant production means, the film features hundreds of extras, a lot of location shooting and grandiose battle sequences, which (combined with the attempt to show a charming rogue, helped along by an exuberant performance by Wallace Beery) help keep the film interesting today … even though it would be completely unacceptable as a new movie today. You can see why Viva Villa! was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award. Fans of Howard Hawks will appreciate knowing his uncredited contribution to the film, even though director Jack Conway completed the film.

Come and Get It (1936)

Come and Get It (1936)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, August 2019) I’m on a mission to watch the entire Howard Hawks filmography, and at this point in the process, having covered most of his classics, I’m starting to get to his lesser-known films. Come and Get It is one of those, and a bit of an oddball title as he was reportedly fired about two thirds of the way through. Adapted from a novel, it’s a complex and occasionally off-putting story of multi-generational infatuation, as a married lumber baron falls for the daughter of the woman he left behind decades previously. There are multiple complications, to the point of resulting in a messy plot that leaves few people happy when it reaches its ending, spurned would-be adulterous protagonist and all. (Note to modern viewers: The Hays Code was slightly more permissive when filmmakers worked from existing novels, but not that much—which helps explain the film’s jerky and unconvincing morals.)  Considering that Hawks didn’t direct all of Come and Get It, it’s hard to pinpoint his exact contribution, but the spectacular footage of old-school logging operations early in the film was enough to warm my French-Canadian heart and certainly resonates with other Hawks movies. Much of the film’s best moments come early on, what with barroom brawling and sharp scenes to establish the characters. It’s afterwards that Come and Get It seems to lose its way, never quite sure whether to commit to tragedy or romance. (Or to say something about environmental matters, which had been one of Hawks’ initial concerns.)  Three good actors manage to make the film better than its confused screenplay: Edward Arnold as the morally ambiguous protagonist, Joel McCrea as the romantic lead, but especially Frances Farmer in a well-controlled dual role. Walter Brennan is a bit annoying, but that’s his character more than the actor. Despite a fair start, Come and Get It ultimately feels aimless and maybe even a bit cut short—it doesn’t completely capitalize on its strengths, and knowing about its troubled production explains some of the issues.

Scarface (1932)

Scarface (1932)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, June 2019) The real star of Scarface may not be Paul Muni as a Capone-inspired gangster, nor superlative director Howard Hawks, nor legendary screenwriter Ben Hecht, but multi-talented producer Howard Hughes and his instinct for anticipating what the American public really wanted to see. By today’s standards, Scarface is promising but familiar fare—the last ninety years have led to a very large number of gangster pictures offering vicarious thrills by portraying (sometimes with a bit of moralistic tut-tutting) the life of gangsters. Martin Scorsese built a career on such movies, and they seem hardwired in Hollywood’s DNA. Examples reach into the silent era (notably Hughes’ The Racket), but Scarface, along with the slightly earlier Little Caesar and The Public Enemy, helped codify the genre even as real-life gangsters were laying waste to urban areas. It was tremendously successful, and just as influential—all the way to a much better-known 1983 remake penned by Oliver Stone and directed by Brian de Palma. This original is much rougher—hailing from the early days of sound cinema, it does have a wild energy to it, and a good turn from Muni. While modern viewers won’t appreciate the innovation of the film in staging complex action sequences (including some savvy special-effects work!), the result on-screen looks and feels a lot like more modern movies. Pre-Code audiences liked it (even Al Capone was reportedly a fan), but Scarface raised so much controversy that it was shelved by Hugues and effectively disappeared for decades before resurfacing in the post-Production Code 1970s. Now, contemporary audiences can see what had been unavailable to prior generations and appreciate the result for themselves, as a hard-hitting gangster film that pushed the envelope and remains absorbing in itself. I’m sure Hughes would approve.

To Have and to Have Not (1944)

To Have and to Have Not (1944)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, March 2019) On paper and on the screen, you really have Classic Hollywood running on overdrive in To Have and to Have Not: Let’s see—Howard Hawks directing from a script by William Faulkner from a story/treatment by Ernest Hemingway; Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall as the lead couple, while they were having an affair behind the cameras that would lead to their marriage later on. Coming from Warner Brothers, there’s an obvious kinship here to be made with Casablanca, especially as the story delves into wartime shenanigans between the French Resistance and the Vichy government. Bogart himself clearly plays his own screen persona as the tough and glum smuggler, while Bacall (despite her young age) delivers an exemplary Hawksian-woman performance with more iconic lines of dialogue than most actors get in an entire career. None of this is particularly new (although the Hemingway/Faulkner collaboration is noteworthy), but it’s fun to have another go-around when it works so well—and the Bogart/Bacall chemistry would itself lead to a few encores. Typically for Hawks, there are a few choice quotes, and the direction is limpid, going to the heart of what you can do with Bogart-as-a-rogue and a luminescent Bacall as a strong wartime dame. Not quite noir but certainly not fluffy, To Have and to Have Not is so much fun to watch (although you may want to space your viewing away from Casablanca due to the inevitable parallels) that it ends a bit abruptly, although not without having Bogart shoot a guy, as it should be. The work of several craftsmen all working at the best of their abilities, it’s quite a treat, but also a good example of what the studio system could do when it was firing on all cylinders.

The Big Sky (1952)

The Big Sky (1952)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, March 2019) Even relatively minor works from Howard Hawks can be interesting, and The Big Sky is the kind of big-budget western shot on location (in black-and-white, alas) that is worth a look even if you don’t like westerns. It’s more of a pioneer movie than a traditional cowboy western—taking place in the Pacific northwest, it features explorers and traders as they head west to befriend natives and establish trading posts. (As such, it’s already more palatable than many horse operas where natives were solely portrayed as bloodthirsty killers.) Much of the film’s action comes from the considerable enmity between the trading companies and the rival native bands. True to facts, there’s a substantial French-Canadian presence here, notably though the character of Jourdonays—although one notes that the actor playing him, Steven Geray, mumbles incomprehensible phonetic French even as the secondary characters speak decent, but European-accented French. Visually, The Big Sky is interesting to look at, and Hawk’s qualities as a sheer entertainer means that there’s almost always something to keep us interested in the film. There’s an interesting romantic arc featuring the ethnically native Elizabeth Threatt in her sole film role. (There’s plenty to quibble in the “native princess kidnapped as a pawn in a trade negotiation” arc, but by 1950s standard this was almost progressive material—the legendary Hawksian woman reinterpreted in that context.)  Acting-wise, the film features Kirk Douglas and Dewey Martin, but all the attention goes to the arresting Threatt and Arthur Hunnicutt’s Oscar-nominated role as a Daniel Boone -type character. On a structural level, the film is slightly less successful, with the last act of the film being an anticlimactic coda after an earlier action climax. Still, it’s worth a look: more interesting than your average 1950s western, The Big Sky indeed opens up possibilities for the western genre that were not often followed up.

Air Force (1943)

Air Force (1943)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, March 2019) Hollywood churned out many propaganda movies during WW2, but they weren’t all of the same quality. Fortunately, Howard Hawks’ Air Force is among the better ones. Focusing on the camaraderie of a bomber crew on the Pacific front, it’s both representative of the inspiring didactic nature of the WW2 propaganda films, and an opportunity for Hawks to indulge in his usual themes and motifs. (Well, absent the presence of strong female characters.)  As the story moves from the US West Coast to Pearl Harbor and then on to the Philippines, the film remains more entertaining than you would expect from its rushed production schedule. Great miniature special effects work and exceptional editing help in patching a film conceived and executed at breakneck speed in the opening months of the war—it’s no surprise that the dramatic scenes feel out of sync with the action, because more care could be lavished on them than the more practical aspects of the production. Reading about the film’s production (even with official help from the US Air Force), it’s nearly a miracle that the film exists at all, let alone have it reach an acceptable level of watchability. The propagandist nature of the film is more obvious in the blunt-force prologue and epilogue, and toward the end of the film during which the bomber crew not only pulls off an amazing repair job before flying to safety, but also spots a Japanese fleet and spearhead an attack on it; not only shoots down a Japanese fighter plane, but has the pilot burn alive before crashing into an enemy ship and severely damaging it. Whew. Still, even with those not-so-subtle patriotic intentions, Hawks manages to portray a small group of men pulling together through the obstacles in their way—you can fly the flag as high as you want, there’s really no substitute in raising morale than having likable characters coming together in the face of deadly peril.

Twentieth Century (1934)

Twentieth Century (1934)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, March 2019) I like our modern era and wouldn’t go back to an era of information scarcity, racial segregation, and polio for anything in the world, but there are a few characteristics of the 1930s that I would like to see revived, and long-distance train journeys throughout North America are certainly one of them. Fortunately, there are movies such as Twentieth Century to illustrate what we’re missing. In this Howard Hawks comedy, the mayhem gets going as an actress boards a train going from Chicago to New York City, and encounters her ex-impresario. He, after a string of flops, is eager to get her to sign up for his next play … but there are complications: many, many complications played aboard the train as it makes its overnight trip, with zany characters to colour the proceedings. Handled through Hawks’ trademark speed and rapid-fire dialogue, Twentieth Century is a pure pre-Code screwball comedy, as blistering fast as modern movies and with dialogue so delicious that it has a strong re-watchability factor. It certainly helps to have John Barrymore onboard, going over-the-top as a grandiose, domineering, overly dramatic Broadway mogul. Playing opposite him in her breakout role is none other than Carole Lombard as the actress in the middle of the interleaved subplots. Adapted from a Broadway play, the film does remains bound to its train setting—presenting Hawks with few opportunities to break out of its confines, but that works better than you’d expect as the film becomes a multi-room theatrical play where the comic action takes centre stage. While the beginning of the film is relatively slow, it quickly speeds up along the pace of its train setting—and it never gets better than when Lombard and Barrymore get in screaming matches with each other. It’s not the best Hawks comedy, but it’s still really enjoyable even now. The Pre-Code nature of the film is muted compared to other films of the era (indeed, the film was among the first to get notes from the Hays Office), but you can still see a few racier references to religious icons and a revealing lingerie shot. Still, Twentieth Century has no need for racy material when its crowd-pleasing fundamentals are so well handled: It’s still a great movie, and deserves its perennial high rankings in the lists of the best 1930s movie comedies.

Only Angels have Wings (1939)

Only Angels have Wings (1939)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, March 2019) There are a few Howard Hawks movies that I like better than Only Angels have Wings, but it does bring together a lot of what made Hawks such a compelling director. It’s a rip-roaring adventure featuring tough guys, as it focuses on a South American airmail company featuring intrepid pilots and dangerous planes. Cary Grant headlines the cast as the head pilot and manager of the small, almost bankrupt company. There’s some hope in the form of a new contract, but achieving it will mean death-defying mountain flying. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s romantic tension thanks to a newly arrived singer (Jean Arthur) and the protagonist’s ex-flame (Rita Hayworth). The mountain passes are treacherous and the planes are underpowered, but the mail must go through no matter how many special-effect crash sequences this means. Directed and partially written by Hawks, Only Angels have Wings clearly shows him working in his element, with a group of tough men and equally tough women working at the frontier of human ingenuity. The dialogue is smart, the pacing is fast, and there’s enough humour and romance to enliven what remains a manly adventure story. The special effects are surprisingly good and impressive for the time. The result is liable to fascinate early aviation fans, even despite the limited means of the time. Grant is his usual charismatic self, with good support from Arthur and a short but eye-catching role for Hayworth (in what is often considered her breakout film). An essential part of the Hawks filmography, Only Angels have Wings still has enough thrills and charm to be worth a look by twenty-first century audiences … like much of Hawk’s filmography.